Chapter 49

Little was known about the void that filled the realm behind the stars, other than what had been passed down between generations. It was said to be a place beyond life, where the Creator was born, where the hells stored our souls while our shadows returned to the darkness to keep it so.

As I stepped through a parted place in the veil, my feet hitting soft and shifting earth, I saw no hell nor god—only a vast world of burning plains. A place I'd been to before. The same place I'd retreated when the demon struck me.

Oblivion.

I'd torn open the void and ended up here. A portal to a place only my power could lead. A place I'd never intended to go. The mark on my back from the demon was sore, like a splinter had been removed. And though I couldn't see the mark myself, I knew it was gone from the flash of pain that had split through my spine as I crossed over.

I stood alone in the center of a scorched patch of earth. In the distance I found what appeared to be a willow tree without leaves, perched on a rolling hill. Its drooping limbs skimmed the tips of the dancing fire.

Taking a testing step, my presence pushed aside the fire and allowed me to walk amongst the flames untouched. My lower back pinched in retaliation, but I pressed on up the hill, searching for a way out—if there was one.

The top of the hill led to an embankment. On the other side was a black river thawing from a frozen state. A man stood on the shore, facing out over the frozen water. His chest was bare, his back covered in strange symbols that neither glowed nor moved, remaining a dull black. They marked the length of his spine, branching over his shoulders and down his arms, which were crossed in front of him as he watched the patches of ice float downstream.

Sabina had once said Oblivion was empty, but if that were true, who was this man and why was he here?

Sensing the prod of my attention, the man looked over his shoulder, his arms slacking some. I took a retreating step, but he raised a hand to stop me. The markings, I noticed then, ran all the way to his palms.

"Wait!" he called, his tone deep and thunderous. "Do not be afraid. I have no power here."

Strange he would lead with that.

His voice interrupted the eerie silence thick in the air. I surveyed the area, but there was no one else accompanying him. "Are you alone?"

He tilted his head, looking me over. "I've been alone for hundreds of years. Yours is the first face I've seen here. How did you..." His eyes fell to the party dress I still wore, to my hands, which were still filled with dark power. "I see."

I approached him cautiously, careful to keep space between us. "How did you end up here? Who are you?"

His gaze snapped to mine, eyes like bright gold coins to match the golden sheen of his long hair that skimmed his shoulders. He was handsome, but unnaturally so. Something about his face was too symmetrical to be a product of nature, too perfect to be anything but deliberately designed.

"I haven't thought about my name in a very long time. It is a forgotten thing. As for how I came here, I think about it often. I was tricked and locked away." He glanced at my hands once more. "It was strange. This river was completely frozen. Then you showed up, and the fields caught fire, the starlight winked, and the river thawed. Almost as if you brought the fire back to Oblivion."

I swallowed to unravel a tightness knotting in my chest. "Why were you locked away?"

The man looked down at his hands, at the inky symbols covering his skin. "I tried to save the world before it was ready to be saved. But that was eons ago."

"Are you a demon?"

Thin lips tipped into a smirk. "There are no demons left in Oblivion. Only us."

That was hardly a comfort. "How do we get out of here?"

He gestured to a low hanging fog that settled over the far side of the river. "Oblivion has been sealed since I was put here. The most conformable way out is through the mist, though you'd fall asleep if you entered it and would be pulled back to shore. It's impossible to cross."

"What do you mean, most conformable way?"

"You must have formed an opening somewhere, if you came here on your own."

I squatted in the sand, staring hard at the dark waters lapping gently against the coast. Whatever tear in the void I'd walked through hadn't followed me here. The burning fields showed no signs of a rift. If what this man said was true, and I'd think he'd have even more motivation to escape if he'd been here as long as he'd claimed, then I needed to find a way down the water.

Swimming was out of the question. I hadn't done so in over a decade and even then, I'd stayed in the shallow parts of the Narrow Sea where my feet could touch. The water was still cold from the thaw as I tested it with a finger. But as I did so, they skimmed across something solid.

A chain.

"There's something tied down here," I muttered aloud. My inky hands dipped into the river and gripped a metal chain that was tied to a sunken post. Whatever it was attached to didn't budge. I dug my flats into the sand and heaved.

"Allow me," he offered.

I reluctantly stepped away to allow him the space to pull up whatever was buried below. He barely struggled, effortlessly pulling the chain until the coils made a small pile in front of his feet until a boat broke through the water's edge.

It made sense, if the river was the way through Oblivion, that there would be a method of transportation. It was a narrow dinghy, no larger than a rowboat. The wooden slats were stuffed with sand from its rest at the bottom of the river.

The man turned to look back at me. Something malicious flashed in his golden eyes.

"There's only room for one."

I glanced behind him at the boat pressed into the shore. He was right. There would only be room for one of us, and I had a strong feeling he'd do anything to claim that seat.

Unfortunately for him, so would I.

He snapped the chain from the hull and swung it side to side. "I've been here for hundreds of years. Out of the two of us, I deserve to take the boat."

"And you'd be here an eternity if I hadn't showed. I'm taking the boat, and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

Fire flooded my fingers. Nico's image flared through my thoughts. The contortion of his face when my brother stabbed him, the blood on the floor, the poison staining his veins. I was running out of time to get to him before the blade claimed his life.

He whipped the chain in his fist with inhuman speed, so quickly I had no chance to duck or brace myself for the impact. The heavy links struck the side of my face, shooting incredible pain through my left eye and flickering my awareness. It knocked me to my knees, and I fought to stay awake, to deny the pain the pleasure of shoving me toward a more tolerable slumber.

I clawed at my power, scraping every bit branching through my nerves to prime it ready as he grabbed me by the shoulders and lifted me from the sand. Blood dribbled along the line of my jaw, my head flopped to the side, staring at the cocked image of his face. Fire wove itself between my fingers.

No longer was I hesitant to use this flame inside me. The approval of who I was, the parts I loved and resented, was not up to anyone else. It was my choice, and that choice to accept what I'd received unbidden and unasked gave me all the power I ever needed. Trusting myself and my abilities, knowing that I was in control of not only my heart and my mind, but my remnant as well.

I devoured his body in dark flame and watched as the fire of Oblivion, my remnant, descended from my mother, a saint made mortal, tore at flawless skin. His grip on me didn't loosen as I predicted. Unlike the other times I'd used my remnant, he was unscathed.

Never had I seen that before. No one was immune to my fire but me...

He laughed as flames whirled, clawed at his face. No more penetrable than the shadows they were made from. "You cannot kill me with your fire, daughter. I have no power here, but neither does yours work against me. The Creator wouldn't give us weapons to use against our siblings, after all. That's why we used mortals."

My power dissipated, and I stared into his golden eyes, perplexed by his words. "Siblings?" I gasped.

In one smooth motion, he flipped me against his chest. A hand buried itself into the crown of my hair, the other wrapped my waist while simultaneously pinning my arms within his constricting hold—and it crushed my chest. Pain lanced my skull from the repercussion of the chain and the yank of my roots from my scalp.

He brought us to the river. My lower half burned as he shoved me into the water and pushed my face just above the still surface. Ripples calmed into a flat plane, revealing our reflections on its wavering canvas.

But the man who looked down at me was not the one who I'd approached before. Gold eyes were now bright red, glowing from large orbits on a sagging face. The thing behind me smiled, revealing rows of sharpened teeth. Terrifying even as the details were obscured by the unsteady surface.

"What are you?" The words shook from my throat. Two faces... What creature in the world had two completely different faces. One beautiful and soft, the other emaciated and cruel. The answer hit me just as he plunged my head under water.

This was not a man, but a Saint. The gold of Giver and the decay of Greed.

The deity used both hands to hold me under despite my thrashing. The shock of the river's temperature stole what little breath I could manage before it was too late. My chest burned, the pound of my erratic pulse the only sound beneath the water's edge. Just as my lungs began to shrivel out of desperation, he pulled me out.

Blessed air filled my chest once I emerged. The saint fisted my hair to arch my back, pulling me flush against him. "I am the Order of Creation, the laws that give meaning and life to the world. I am the destruction of evil and free will. I am the undoing of Chaos and her children." Marble-like fingers pinched my airway. "I am everything you should fear because I am the only one who can put out your fire. You might have brought the flame back to Oblivion, but you will never be free again."

"I didn't bring the flame, Giver." My voice was coarse as the sand shoved beneath my fingernails. "I am the flame."

My remnant shot from my palms, felt it devour the hard frame of his body still pressing mine against him. He hissed, a pained sound, before finally releasing me to cease our connection. I didn't check to see if I'd killed or harmed him. Instead, I ran to the boat, struggling against the drag of my skirts through the knee-high river, and tossed myself into the vessel.

By the time I reached for the oar, Giver was on his feet, though after experiencing my flames, he appeared more like his alternate form. Half his face was the man I'd met, the other his reflection in the water. Both regarded me with a rage that could kill if wrath was a weapon, but he had no power here. Had admitted so himself.

My mother was Chaos, and she'd created this place for her disorder to thrive. Oblivion answered my call, not his. He had time to take one step off the shore before I reached a hand into the water and let my flames spread across the surface, where they covered the river with flickering shadows. He dared not enter the shallows, because though my flames hadn't destroyed him like the others they'd claimed, he didn't seem to enjoy them either.

"You cannot kill me on your own," he mocked. "Your power is not whole, Remni. You are but a piece of her, not enough to break all of me."

"Maybe not," I spoke through my teeth. "But you'll still burn all the same. Get in the water if you're so certain I cannot hurt you."

He didn't move, and I smirked as I pushed the oar's end against the riverbed to find the current. Only then did I drop the steer, letting the vessel float in a river of my chaos. When I was certain the saint could not follow, I sunk to my knees in a soggy pile of brocade and willed the boat to move faster. The strength in my body was giving out as the flow pulled me further from Oblivion.

I didn't know where it would bring me exactly.

Truthfully, I no longer cared.

The man who'd become my home and my forever was dying and I couldn't stop it no more than I could go back and change all the ways I'd failed him. I'd carry the blame of his death more than I'd blamed my brother, more than the Firenzes. Because I'd seen the warning signs in Aramis and still believed the best of my flesh and blood. He'd shown me time and time again he wasn't on my side, but after losing so much, I'd only wanted to keep the little I had left of my family.

And that child-like foolishness had cost me everything.

"I will find a way out," Giver's voice echoed against the beginning of the mist. "You've opened Oblivion, daughter. There's nothing holding me here any longer."

I'd unlocked what had been sealed. I'd been given what Delilah had searched for. The mark on my back, the mark the demon left on me, it wasn't the fire—no, I'd carried that all along.

It was the key, as if the messenger knew I'd someday require it. Like I was meant to open this place all along.

My thoughts pondered the meaning of it all as the dark mist covered the narrow boat, and I fell into a dreamless sleep and thoughts of home.